1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dispenser for delivering a supply from a delivery opening.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, examples of the conventionally-used dispensers of such kind include a drink dispenser and an ice chip dispenser. The drink dispenser delivers such drinks as water, juice, and soup in response to an operation performed by a user. As a configuration of the drink dispenser, a configuration in which only drinks are delivered or a configuration in which ice chips are delivered together with drinks may be employed. The ice chip dispenser delivers ice chips in response to the operation performed by the user.
In some cases, such dispensers are used for drink bars in, for example, family restaurants and manga (comic book) cafes. The drink bar offers such service that allows users to freely operate a dispenser set up in a drink bar area of a restaurant or a shop in advance so that the users can freely select drinks that they want. For such a drink bar, in some cases, a drink dispenser having a configuration in which ice chips can be supplied together with drinks is set up alone. In other cases, a drink dispenser having a configuration in which only drinks are delivered is set up along with an ice chip dispenser.
When a dispenser is used for a drink bar, there occurs a case in which leftover juice or soup is thrown away into a drain pan of the dispenser. If juice and the like including juice and soup are thrown away into the drain pan, the juice and the like go dry, and may adhere to the drain pan. In order to prevent the dried juice and the like from adhering to the drain pan, wash water or the like may be supplied to the drain pan.
An example of the configuration that enables the wash water to be supplied to the drain pan includes an apparatus described in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid open No. S63-63887. Specifically, in a conventional dispenser, an ice-making water tank of a plate-type ice-making machine is connected to a drain pan by means of piping. Every time a deicing cycle of the plate-type ice-making machine is started, ice-making water stored in the ice-making water tank is supplied to the drain pan as the wash water. The deicing cycle is included in an ice-making action performed by the plate-type ice-making machine. In this cycle, the ice-making water is sprayed onto the back side of an ice-making plate, to thereby remove from the ice-making plate an ice plate formed on the front side of the ice-making plate.
With such a conventional dispenser as described above, in which the wash water is supplied to the drain pan every time the deicing cycle is started, it is impossible to make a detailed response suitable to the usage of the dispenser, and hence this may lead to insufficient washing. Specifically, depending on the installation environment of the dispenser, the deicing cycle may not be performed all day long even though the dispenser is used, and, as a result, dried juice and the like may adhere to the drain pan.